Advertising assault sets the stage for B.C. election

British Columbians haven’t heard a word from their legislative assembly since May of last year, when the spring session ended and Premier Christy Clark made the controversial decision to avoid a fall sitting. The public was left to mull over dramatic personnel changes inside the premier’s office, and then her blushing shock jock radio chat and some awkward year-end interviews.

It’s been one strange episode after another for Ms. Clark and her Liberal party, which remains stuck about 15 points behind the provincial NDP in public opinion surveys. For the Liberals to pull off a fourth-straight electoral victory in May, they must avoid making any more mistakes, and they must have more British Columbians believe they are sincere.

The problem starts with Ms. Clark’s firm commitment to have her government present a “balanced budget” next month, once the legislature finally reconvenes. The Liberals last posted a budget surplus in 2008. Since then, it’s been one failed projection — and fiscal update — after another. This week, B.C.’s finance minister appointed a former Bank of Montreal chief economist to “review and assess the upcoming budget” prior to its release. But there are no guarantees the government’s numbers will prove any more accurate as the fiscal year unfolds.

The sincerity of all parties will be evaluated in their campaign messaging. While the writ doesn’t drop for weeks, the advertising cycle has already started; local airwaves are filling with partisan rebukes and retorts, little squalls before the coming storm.

There is NDP leader Adrian Dix, vowing to not go negative in a TV spot that debuted this week in the B.C interior. “While the Liberal party relies on personal attacks, I plan to act on issues important to you and your family,” he says. By snapping at the Liberals and their “personal attacks,” has he already broken his promise?

The Liberals have also released their first campaign salvo, a TV ad with their leader speaking about the B.C. Jobs Plan, a provincial program the Clark government created in 2011 in an effort to boost employment.

The ad delivers a simple, hopeful message. And no coincidence, it meshes with a much larger, taxpayer-funded advertising campaign built around the same provincial Jobs Plan. That campaign is reportedly to cost taxpayers $15-million.

The opposition claims the two ad campaigns are really one and are partisan. But B.C.’s transportation minister, Mary Polak, told a Vancouver newspaper that the ads “simply tell the story of where British Columbia has arrived at being a leader in economies around the world. And that’s not something, last time I checked, that was unique to a B.C. Liberal position.”

Somewhat less conspicuous is a pre-writ campaign launched by a pro-Liberal group led by Ms. Clark’s former “special advisor” on the economy, Vancouver businessman Jim Shepard.

Concerned Citizens for B.C. has raised more than $700,000 since its inception last year. Last week, radio stations began airing the group’s first broadcast advertisement, aimed straight at Mr. Dix.

“In 1994, [then-Premier] Glen Clark and Adrian Dix demanded union-only labour for the Island Highway, boosting costs by 37%,” says a female voice. “Remember the fast ferries? Built for $460-million. Sold for under $20-million. Dix resigned from the premier’s office after falsifying a document during an official police investigation. Now he wants another chance?” The ad ends with a male voice intoning that Mr. Dix is “a risk we can’t afford.”

The Island Highway business is almost two decades old and isn’t much of an issue anymore. The fast ferries episode — in which an NDP-led government commissioned the construction of three catamaran-styled passenger and car ferries unsuited for use in local waters — was a debacle, to be sure, but the present government has some recent blunders of its own, including Vancouver’s wildly over-budget, $880-million convention centre expansion, and the $563- million new roof at B.C. Place stadium, originally pegged at $365-million.

More damaging, potentially, is the advertisement’s reference to Mr. Dix’s blatant attempt to mislead British Columbians back in 1998. He backdated a memo intended to save Glen Clark from controversy surrounding the licensing of casinos in B.C. Mr. Dix was later found out and fired as Mr. Clark’s chief of staff.

The B.C. Liberals tried to make hay of the incident with radio ads in 2011, after Mr. Dix had become NDP leader. But any impact the ads might have had was fleeting. The NDP regained a commanding lead in polls the following spring.

Concerned Citizens For B.C. has another weapon: a four-minute animated video it hopes to spread via social media. The video describes “a horrific storm that’s gathering speed … we’ve dubbed this front Hurricane Adrian, and it’s beginning to look like a perfect storm.”

“A new government would stall — if not blow out — the energy sector,” the video warns. “A swirling front of punitive legislation threatens to evaporate planned mega-projects …. A sweltering heat wave of pummelling labour legislation threatens to leave fruit rotting on the trees.” On it goes, one apocalyptic prediction after another. Funny or serious? It’s really hard to tell. The anti-NDP video is so weird, it might actually work.